


road flare

by lochTenderness (theseourbodies)



Series: Asteroid B 612 [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Yakuza, Gen, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Torture, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:53:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27356059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theseourbodies/pseuds/lochTenderness
Summary: Takahiro had known the news would be bad, but this is even worse than he had forced himself to expect. This is what comes of working with people like Oikawa; fuckers like that will have you believing in miracles even when you should damn well know better.A prequel story toroses on asteroids. Now a multichapter fic.
Relationships: Hanamaki Takahiro & Iwaizumi Hajime, Hanamaki Takahiro & Iwaizumi Hajime & Matsukawa Issei & Oikawa Tooru, Hanamaki Takahiro & Matsukawa Issei, Hanamaki Takahiro & Matsukawa Issei & Oikawa Tooru, Kyoutani Kentarou/Yahaba Shigeru (implied), Oikawa Tooru & Yahaba Shigeru
Series: Asteroid B 612 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2008567
Comments: 3
Kudos: 11
Collections: Haikyuu Angst Week 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for day 2 of HQ Angst Week 2020: Phone Calls/Texts
> 
> This is a prequel story to [_roses on asteroids_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25604164), but both pieces can be read independently of one another.

Before he found himself too deep to even want to get himself back out again, people used to warn Issei about Iwaizumi’s temper. When he goes off, he’s an explosion, and Issei supposes that’s true. He’ll go up in flames, sure enough, but that’s quick; it’s the smoke that comes afterwards that you have to worry about most, and that can’t get you the way the fire can. Iwaizumi gets road flare furious, safety light mad, but at least for the most part, it’s all bark and a fast, early bite. 

  
Those fuckers wouldn’t know real danger if it bit them in the ass, turns out. Issei knows now that if Iwaizumi’s a road flare, Oikawa’s a brush fire, smoldering all the time just out of sight. You look away for a second, convinced you already checked what needed to be checked and then bam! There’s the flare up and boom! Flames fucking everywhere. At least he can say now that they’re not exactly complicated people. What ticks Iwaizumi off isn’t going to get to Oikawa in the same way, but if anything even touches Oikawa, if that brush fire even starts to smoke, well—

He wished, sometimes, that they were more complicated, but at least they’re easy enough to manage and child’s play to predict. He likes that well enough. It could always be worse 

Issei dumps every single one of the tiny booze bottles from the mini fridge into the trash can, then dumps the whole bag out in the hallway for someone else to deal with. He leans up against the door and types a slow response to the thirteen messages Makki’s left him while he locks the deadbolt and slides the chain into place. It’s flimsy protection on its own, but anyone stupid enough to come after Oikawa here will have more than physical barriers to deal with, and they have to know that. This is still Oikawa’s turf, and that damn well means something, even though—even still. 

The bedroom door’s stupidly bougie, the two smoked, sliding glass panels ominously dark. Doc slides one side open and slips out, his own bag of trash in one hand and a grim look on his sweet face. Makki’s ten minutes out, his last message had said, but Issei wishes he was already here; through the open door, he can just here the strange pitch of Iwaizumi’s voice. He’s never heard the man sound so fucking tortured, like he was the one they’d pulled, rag-doll limp, out of that basement and not—well. 

Issei doesn’t need to know Doc as well as he does to know that the news is going to be shit. 

His phone dings softly. 

>5mins, Makki says. 

>hurry, Issei shoots back. He doesn’t wait for a response. 

\---

It’s not good. Takahiro had known that before he had even walked into the room. He had known the news would be bad, but this is even worse than he had forced himself to expect. This is what comes of working with people like Oikawa; fuckers like that will have you believing in miracles even when you should damn well know better. 

Doc Suga’s waiting for them both when Issei lets him in. Sugawara’s been their go-to for doctoring since he’d had the dubious good fortune of stumbling, debt-laden and struggling, onto Oikawa’s radar. It’s one of those things that makes you really want to believe in the inevitability of the universe, that the two of them had stumbled onto one another; Suga’s that same kind of ruthless and detail oriented personality that Oikawa just loves to collect. He’d had a debt problem and Oikawa had had a debt solution, and Suga’s been cheerfully providing back-alley medical assistance since he graduated from his criminally-subsidized medical program. 

He’s not so cheerful now, which Takahiro appreciates. He abandons his usual bedside manner and just gives them what they need: straight facts, no bullshit. 

Broken ankle. Blunt force trauma to the knee resulting in extended dislocation. Three busted ribs to match the three broken fingers on his left hand. Suga’s good with a pencil; he has a rough sketch of whatever insignia had been on whatever it was that had busted Oikawa’s cheekbone. He doesn’t hand it over until Takahiro sticks his hand out to take it; they all politely ignore the way his own hand shakes. He knows already what the sketch is going to show him; he’s already so angry he’s surprised the whole world isn’t shaking under the weight of it. 

“I want to see him,” someone says in a low, terrible voice; it takes a moment for Takahiro to realize it was him. 

Suga blinks at him, and Takahiro wants to scream. He knows that look, he already knows that Suga’s going to refuse him. 

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Suga says, artificially calm despite the fact that he’s probably seen on Takahiro’s own face that he knew this was coming. The thing about working with Oikawa is that you’re loyal; you can’t help yourself. The dangerous thing for the people on the outside, looking in, is that you’re not loyal to the things that Oikawa is loyal to; you’re just loyal to him. The old man used to joke about it with his clever little eyes glinting. They’d all chuckled at it, they’d all laughed at one point or another. Funny, none of them are laughing now. 

“Not right now, anyway,” Suga continues, and it’s a concession Takahiro hadn’t expected. 

Issei shifts beside him. “Iwaizumi’s in there with him,” is all he offers when Takahiro glances up instinctively, but as usual, it’s all Takahiro needs. 

He realizes, relieved, that this isn’t a trust thing or a question of loyalty. This isn’t ally versus brotherhood, this is Doc Suga, secret tenderheart, trying to preserve the dignity of one of the few men he openly respects. It isn’t, unfortunately, going to make the waiting any easier. 

“Hey, Issei, you already dump the—”

“Yeah.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah.”

Suga smiles as he takes his leave quietly. “Get him to the hospital as soon as you can. He’ll need it.” 

Takahiro shares a look with Issei, who shrugs. “We’ll make it quick.”

Suga’s a good man; he doesn’t ask what ‘it’ is, and he likely doesn’t want to know. 

“You need an extra body to walk you down to your car, Doc?”

Takahiro bristles; he can’t help it. This territory, it’s _theirs_ , carved out painstakingly over half a decade. Yesterday, Issei wouldn’t have even thought to ask that; he wouldn’t have needed to. It’s well known that Suga’s their man Friday; he ought to be safe, _more_ than safe walking just down to the parking garage but they can’t be sure about anything, anymore. Whole damn world’s lost its mind already, and nothing’s certain, now. 

Suga casually flips his key ring around a finger and grins; it’s not nice or sweet, and Takahiro almost laughs. “I think I’ll manage, but thanks. When Iwaizumi—when he comes out, remind him that he needs to change the dressing on that scrape up his arm. We don’t need an infection on top of all this shit, trust me.” He pauses with the door open in front of him and says, “All of you… be well.”

Takahiro knows all they have to do is pick up the phone and call, and Suga will show up again, no questions asked. Still, the silence after the door closes feels too final. 

Tomorrow, they’ll set this whole damn city on fire. Road flare, brush fire, that’s nothing on the hell that Takahiro and the boys are already planning to bring down on the rightfully accused. But for now, the hotel room is still and dark. If he strains, he can vaguely hear Iwaizumi talking. Takahiro and Issei sit, silent as stone guardians standing watch around temple gates. He doesn’t know what that makes Oikawa or Iwaizumi, in the room behind them. He just knows that this is what the two of them can do right now, so they’ll do it. They have to. 

They sit and wait at the temple gates of the bedroom, waiting for something: for the sun to rise again, maybe, or just for the world to start turning once more. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry kyouken-chaaaan. 
> 
> **Additional Warnings** :This is officially a Yakuza AU, and this fic should be read with the understanding that the usual content warnings will apply, including implied violence. It's strongly implied that a character requests the right to commit suicide, but he is vehemently denied.

Takahiro checks his phone when it buzzes, not a minute after Issei had picked up a call from the lobby and gone to the wait at the elevator doors down the hall. 

“It’s Yahaba,” he tells a waiting Iwaizumi and Oikawa. 

“Ah, finally,” Oikawa mutters, squinting irritably down at the sheaf of papers in the portfolio in his lap. 

“Was that a suggestion of boredom, King?” 

Oikawa turns his squint on Iwaizumi with a huff, but before they can settle back into one of their usual scuffles Issei knocks three times on the suite’s French doors. It’s too bad, really; Takahiro’s found that nothing has settled his lingering nerves (and his growing irritation with the lack of progress finding the root of their information leak problem) than Iwaizumi’s return to his regularly scheduled tough love regiment. For his part, Oikawa had grown disgustingly chipper under the attention, proving that Iwaizumi really was the cranky, prickling pill to ease all Oikawa related ailments. Even a visit from Oikawa’s current favorite associate wouldn’t have been quite this effective.

It becomes very clear, however, that this is not a normal visit as soon as the doors open.  Yahaba stalks to the center of the master bedroom and bows precisely towards Oikawa in the club chair he’s been receiving any visitors in. Oikawa abandons even the hint of anything but that familiar, cool indifference. He closes the portfolio in his lap with a snap and passes it off to Iwaizumi without looking before settling his non-wrecked cheek against his hand with studied casualness. 

Yahaba clearly understands the sudden turn in Oikawa’s mood, even if it’s given Takahiro an embarrassing case of whiplash.

“I see you already know why I’m here, Oikawa-san.” 

“I might.” 

Yahaba shudders visibly; everything about his usually flawless image is just a little off. His hair frizzes at the ends; Takahiro notices for the first time that he isn’t wearing a tie. Under his usual fussy suit jacket, soft creases around his middle have ruined the line of his button down. 

“Then you know what I need to ask.” 

“...I might.” 

“Please. You  have to believe  me; he didn’t know what he was doing. Oikawa-san knows—he's not always careful, and they riled him up knowing that. And now....his own boss, they’ll kill him,”  Yahaba whispers to the floor, and Takahiro struggles not to snarl out loud. 

Finally, their traitor is revealed. There’s only one man alive that prickly, ferally loyal  Yahaba would beg for like this. From his position behind Oikawa’s chair, Iwaizumi goes  absolutely still . Takahiro can’t focus on him closely enough to tell, but he suspects Iwaizumi isn’t breathing.

“Are you saying he doesn’t deserve it?” 

“I’m saying... I’m saying I might not survive it if they do.” 

Oikawa drops his fist from where it had been supporting his chin; he straightens, looking down his still-swollen nose. The fact that one of his eyes is still swollen up and well bruised doesn’t make him any less intimidating to look at head on. 

“Is that a threat,  Yahaba-kun ?” He asks their oldest and most dedicated accountant.

Yahaba takes a deep, shaking breath and looks their boss right in the eye. “If that’s what it needs to be,” he breathes, his face set and sure.

“ Yahaba \--” Issei says warningly, but Oikawa raises a hand, unusually imperious. His smile is an angry slash across his face. 

“Good to see you’ve finally learned to play the game, my friend,” Oikawa says softly, finally breaking the rising tension neatly as he leans back against into the chair. If he’s uncomfortable, Takahiro can only see it in the tension around his unbruised eye. “Tell him for me: He doesn’t have to see me if he can’t, but he knows what he has to do. I want to proof delivered to the old man within the day.” That he'll know if  Yahaba tries to fuck him over is an unspoken threat underscoring the words.

Yahaba looks like he’s going to be sick. Like Doc Suga, he's another one of Oikawa's carefully collected assets; he must understand, as Takahiro does, that the relationship he had enjoyed between them is thoroughly over now. He closes his eyes slowly as he bows his head. “Yes,” he whispers, his sure voice wavering like a teenager’s. “Yes, I will. Thank you, Oikawa-san. Thank you.” 

\---

The gaudy, smoked glass doors close behind Yahaba softly as the man stumbles out of the bedroom where Oikawa has been stuck for a week. The silence he leaves behind is choking; he takes all the air out with him. 

Takahiro stares sightlessly at the closed doors. Fucking Kyoutani. He’d been ripping the organization out by the roots, looking for their ultimate traitor, and it had been nothing more than  Kyoutani running his goddamn mouth. 

And now, there was nothing to be done. Oikawa’s promise that  Kyoutani could live was a promise made for all of them; and judging by the look on his still battered face, he knows that none of them may be able to forgive him for it. Oikawa meets Takahiro’s eyes straight on, unflinching; Takahiro is the one who turns away first, standing abruptly to stalk over to the massive bank of windows that make up the western-most wall. They’ve been conducting their business in the hot, amber light of the setting sun, and Takahiro wishes the heat of it would burn away his bad thoughts, his brief, terrible wish that he was less loyal than he is.

He registers someone—Iwaizumi—dragging in a shaking breath; he looks toward his old friend with a barely controlled wince.  Kyoutani had been his; his recruit, his pet project, and,  more often than not , his line in the sand when it came to his otherwise limitless capacity for accommodating Oikawa. What had been a running joke between the four of them wasn’t very funny now. 

It still nearly knocks the breath out of his chest when Iwaizumi walks stiffly to the center of the room, taking up the space in front of Oikawa that Yahaba had just left. He watches, struck dumb, as Iwaizumi sinks gracelessly to his knees; across the room, Issei jerks away from his position by the door, his eyes zipping between Iwaizumi, Takahiro, and Oikawa, who was sitting up stiffly in the  chair still. When his gaze sticks back on Takahiro, Takahiro can only shrug helplessly. 

Iwaizumi’s face is set in a hard, still mask when he settles back onto his heels and bows his forehead to the ground. 

Oikawa jerks like he’s been slapped. “Get up,” he says, tight-lipped mouth barely moving. 

“Oikawa-sama,” Iwaizumi says numbly to the ground, and Oikawa snarls at the honorific. He slowly levers himself to his feet, cast, splint, and all. 

“Get. Up!” He hisses, and Takahiro goes stiff at the tone. He looks nervously towards Issei again, but the other man shakes his head minutely.  _ Wait. _

Iwaizumi’s flinch is barely perceptible, but Takahiro catches the way his shoulders go impossibly tighter before he slumps a little further into the bow. With Iwaizumi huddled to the ground and Oikawa kitted out in one of the  kimono he’d been stuck in while his wrist and knee healed, the whole scene is like something out of a painting—prostrated subject and lordly, berobed king. The bruising on Oikawa’s face has gone ugly and yellowed, but the swelling has finally gone down; the rage of his expression is clear.

Takahiro presses himself back against the hot glass of the window, looking for a distraction from the way his chest aches. He doesn’t want to be here to watch this. Seeing  Yahaba on his knees, begging for the life of a subordinate that Takahiro had dearly wanted to see dead had been bad enough; seeing Oikawa let loose his temper on someone like Iwaizumi makes Takahiro physically sick to his stomach. He glances again at Issei, but Issei is still staring hard at an oblivious Oikawa. 

Iwaizumi takes another deep, wavering breath—Takahiro can see the trembling of his shoulders and it’s a struggle not to look away—and slowly straightens up, settling back onto his heels with his head still bowed. He had heard something in Oikawa’s demand that had bent his strong spine; whatever argument they had been having had been outside of Takahiro’s ability to follow, and now it was already done.

Suddenly, Takahiro understands what had driven  Yahaba here to beg on his knees for the life of another man. Takahiro sees the slump of Iwaizumi’s shoulders and he has to lock his knees to keep from kneeling to beg himself, to prevent whatever judgement Oikawa had just passed silently on his oldest friend and most trusted lieutenant. He holds his breath instead, waiting,  _ praying  _ that he’s wrong.

“I-- I understand,” Iwaizumi chokes. His hands are balled so tightly that his fists shake on his thighs. 

“You do  _ not,” _ Oikawa snaps before he winces and presses a hand against his forehead, shading his eyes. “Damn you,” he mutters, and his voice is shockingly thick. “ _ Damn you.”  _

“He was mine,” breathes Iwaizumi, his head still bowed. “And so, his failure is mine. You’ve made that very clear. Give me a clean death for it,  _ please. _ ”

Oikawa doesn’t sound angry anymore when he drops his hand from his face and sighs, “How  _ dare  _ you. How dare you tell me what my own words meant.” 

Iwaizumi doesn’t move. Takahiro watches on, the tension in his shoulders growing with every second. 

They are all four trapped, stock still until, finally, something gives. 

“Hajime,” Oikawa murmurs finally into the heavy air in the room. “ _ Please.  _ If you want to die so badly, then please: live as punishment.” Oikawa’s voice is icy, except at the edges where it wavers just barely. Takahiro presses himself even further into the window, suddenly keenly aware that he’s hearing something very, very personal. 

Iwaizumi raises his eyes from the ground finally to stare up at their leader, the only man capable of bringing them all together and keeping them so loyal. He’s slack-jawed, Takahiro sees before he turns his own eyes to Issei, helplessly trying to give his two oldest friends’ the privacy they deserve. He remembers that first night, the two of them tucked into the dark of this very bedroom, Issei and Takahiro standing watch at the doors. In the soft light of sunset, it feels once more like hallowed ground.

Across the room, Issei’s face is ferocious in triumph.

“Live with  _ me,” _ Oikawa’s disembodied voice whispers, _ “ _ and redeem yourself that way if you have to.”

“ _ Tooru.”  _

“I told you before; I’m tired. All those plans—but it’s done now. I set the pieces, and I lost the game anyway, and now—well.” 

“Idiot,” Iwaizumi chokes, and Takahiro takes that as a sign that he really, really needs to leave the room before they all end up embarrassed when the mood breaks. He beats a retreat around the perimeter of the room to where a smugly grinning Issei is waiting for him already with one door cracked. Takahiro slips through and into the cool dark of the living room. 

He and Issei wait just long enough to hear Iwaizumi say, voice cracking, “Fuck, what are we even going to  _ do _ ?” and Oikawa’s watery laugh before they gently close the temple gates behind them. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “God, there has to be some alcohol in this god forsaken hotel,” Takahiro mutters, glaring at the minibar. 
> 
> Issei is red-faced. He looks so earnestly happy it makes Takahiro’s chest ache. 
> 
> “Gross,” he mutters, poking Issei in the cheek and grinning so hard himself that his own cheeks hurt. 
> 
> Issei chortles. “Fuck ‘some alcohol,’ I’m calling in for some champagne.” 
> 
> “Caviar!” 
> 
> “Mm, maybe some of that gold-foiled sashimi.” 
> 
> “Yeah, make it a full meal; fuck it, we’ve definitely earned it.”

**Author's Note:**

> As always, hmu on the tweeter for more Nonsense Content: [@theseourbodies](https://mobile.twitter.com/theseourbodies)


End file.
